Heraclitus Quotes

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Quotes About Heraclitus

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If they are gods, why do you lament them? If you lament them, you must no longer regard them as gods. ~ Heraclitus
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All things come into being by conflict of opposites. ~ Heraclitus
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No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. ~ Heraclitus
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When our natural inheritance has been dissipated, then the spirit too, as Heraclitus says, has descended from its fiery heights. But when spirit becomes heavy it turns to water, and with Luciferian presumption the intellect usurps the seat where once the spirit was enthroned. The spirit may legitimately claim the patria potestas over the soul; not so the earth-born intellect, which is man's sword or hammer, and not a creator of spiritual worlds, a father of the soul. ~ C.G. Jung
Heraclitus quotes by C.G. Jung
There is a stability in the Universe because of the orderly and balanced process of change, the same measure coming out as going in, as if reality were a huge fire that inhaled and exhaled equal amounts. ~ Heraclitus
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Applicants for wisdom
do what I have done:
inquire within ~ Heraclitus
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Greater dooms win greater destinies. ~ Heraclitus
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Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own. ~ Heraclitus
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When Heraclitus said that everything passes steadily along, he was not inciting us to make the best of the moment, an idea unseemly to his placid mind, but to pay attention to the pace of things. Each has its own rhythm: the nap of a dog, the procession of the equinoxes, the dances of Lydia, the majestically slow beat of the drums at Dodona, the swift runners at Olympia. ~ Guy Davenport
Heraclitus quotes by Guy Davenport
Presumption must be quenched even more than a fire. ~ Heraclitus
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Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise. ~ Heraclitus
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Allow yourself to think only those thoughts that match your principles and can bear the bright light of day. Day by day, your choices, your thoughts, your actions fashion the person you become. Your integrity determines your destiny. ~ Heraclitus
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A man's character is his guardian divinity. ~ Heraclitus
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Those unmindful when they hear, for all they make of their intelligence, may be regarded as the walking dead. ~ Heraclitus
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It was Heraclitus, of course, who came up with the formulation that we are never able to step into the same river twice. ... The obverse of Heraclitus's maxim may be that one is never able to step out of the river the same, twice. A neuron in the brain is altered with every experience. The self, if it exists, must be a constantly evolving thing. Those coming to the banks of the Ganges or Jordan to immerse themselves do not expect to leave the same as they arrive. ~ James Attlee
Heraclitus quotes by James Attlee
Causality was no longer the hidden demiurge that ruled the universe: down was up, the last was the first, the end was the beginning. Heraclitus had been resurrected from his dung heap, and what he had to show us was the simplest of truths: reality was a yo-yo, change was the only constant. ~ Paul Auster
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If it were not for injustice, men would not know justice. ~ Heraclitus
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The waking have one world in common; sleepers have each a private world of his own. ~ Heraclitus
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Even what those with the greatest reputation for knowing it all claim to understand and defend are but opinions. ~ Heraclitus
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It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine. ~ Heraclitus
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No one can step twice into the same river, nor touch mortal substance twice in the same condition. By the speed of its change, it scatters and gathers again. ~ Heraclitus
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It was Heraclitus' ideas that seized Nietzsche so totally that he became completely mad. ~ Rajneesh
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If you do not hope, you will not win that which is not hoped for, since it is unattainable and inaccessible. ~ Heraclitus
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Most people do not take heed of the things they encounter, nor do they grasp them even when they have learned about them, although they suppose they do. ~ Heraclitus
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Give me one man
from among ten thousand
if he is the best ~ Heraclitus
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if my memory serves me right, here is my genealogical line: Boccaccio, Petronius, Rabelais, Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Maeterlinck, Romain Rolland, Plotinus, Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Dostoievsky (and other Russian writers of the Nineteenth Century), the ancient Greek dramatists, theElizabethan dramatists (excluding Shakespeare), Theodore Dreiser, Knut Hamsun, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Elie Faure, Oswald Spengler, Marcel Proust, Van Gogh, the Dadaists and Surrealists, Balzac, Lewis Carroll, Nijinsky, Rimbaud, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Giono, Celine, everything I read on Zen Buddhism, everything I read about China, India, Tibet, Arabia, Africa, and of course the Bible, the men who wrote it and especially the men who made the King James version, for it was the language of the Bible rather than its "message" which I got first and which I will never shake off. ~ Henry Miller
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Eternity is like a child playing at draughts; the kingdom belongs to a child. ~ Heraclitus
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One man is worth thousand if he is extraordinary ~ Heraclitus
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Emerson said that a library is a magic chamber in which there are many enchanted spirits. They wake when we call them. When the book lies unopened, it is literally, geometrically, a volume, a thing among things. When we open it, when the book surrenders itself to its reader, the aesthetic event occurs. And even for the same reader the same book changes, for the change; we are the river of Heraclitus, who said that the man of yesterday is not the man of today, who will not be the man of tomorrow. We change incessantly, and each reading of a book, each rereading, each memory of that rereading, reinvents the text. The text too is the changing river of Heraclitus. ~ Jorge Luis Borges
Heraclitus quotes by Jorge Luis Borges
It is weariness to keep toiling at the same things so that one becomes ruled by them. ~ Heraclitus
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We think of life as solid and are haunted when time tells us it is a fluid. Old Heraclitus couldn't have stepped in the same river once, let alone twice. ~ Jim Harrison
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The track of writing is straight and crooked. ~ Heraclitus
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There is but one world common for those who are awake, but when men are asleep, each turns away into a world of his own. ~ Heraclitus
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Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει
(All is flux, and nothing abides) ~ Heraclitus
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The world is nothing but a great desire to live and a great dissatisfaction with living. ~ Heraclitus
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Dogs bark at a person whom they do not know. ~ Heraclitus
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Men who are lovers of wisdom [i.e., philosophers] must be inquirers into many things. ~ Heraclitus
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Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Parmenides all state or suggest that thinking the right kinds of thoughts positively transforms our relationship to our environment. If thoughts are the right kind, it is presumably because they build on the particular receptivity of human nature to true knowledge about the nature of things, knowledge that, in turn, brings the person into greater harmony with the world around him. Thought is thus a uniquely transformative encounter with reality. ~ Brooke Holmes
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To me one man is worth ten thousand if he is first-rate. ~ Heraclitus
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Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears. ~ Heraclitus
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The road up and the road down is one and the same.
(ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω μία καὶ ὡυτή)
- Fragment 60 ~ Heraclitus
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The fairest harmony springs from discord. ~ Heraclitus
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The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign ~ Heraclitus
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The most beautiful arrangement is a pile of things poured out at random ~ Heraclitus
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Looking at the works of art that are considered worthy of preservation in our Museums, and that were once the common objects of the market place, I could not but realise that a society can only be considered truly civilised when it is possible for every man to earn his living by the very work he would rather be doing than anything else in the world, a condition that has only been attained in social orders integrated on the basis of vocation, "svadharma".

At the same time I should like to emphasis that I have never built up a philosophy of my own or wished to establish a new school of thought. Perhaps the greatest thing I have learnt is never to think for myself; I fully agree with Andre Gide that "Toutes choses sont dites deja", and what I have sought is to understand what has been said, while taking no account of the "inferior philosophers". Holding with Heraclitus that the Word is common to all, and that Wisdom is to know the Will whereby all things are steered, I am convinced with Jeremias that the human cultures in all their apparent diversity are but the dialects of one and the same language of the spirit, that there is a "common universe of discourse" transcending the differences of tongues". ~ Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
Heraclitus quotes by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
A drunk man, staggering and mindless, must be led home by his son, so wet is his psyche ... Water brings death to the psyche, as earth brings death to water ... The psyche lusts to be wet. ~ Heraclitus
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The living and the dead,
The awake and the sleeping,
The young and the old are all one and the same.
When the ones change, they become the others.
When those shift again, they become these again.
God is day and night.
God is winter and summer.
God is war and peace.
God is fertility and famine.
He transforms into many things.
Day and night are one.
Goodness and badness are one.
The beginning and the end of a circle are one. ~ Heraclitus
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I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel – a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept. ~ Horace Walpole
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The unexpected connection is more powerful than one that is obvious. ~ Heraclitus
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The habit of knowledge
is not human but devine. ~ Heraclitus
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The world, an entity out of everything,
was created by none of the gods or men,
but was, is and will be eternally living
fire, regularly becoming ignited and reg-
ularly becoming extinguished ... ~ Heraclitus
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The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls.
(translation/paraphrase: Terence McKenna) ~ Heraclitus
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Again, it is harder to fight with pleasure than with anger, to use Heraclitus' phrase', but both art and virtue are always concerned with what is harder; ~ Aristotle.
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We must therefore be guided by what is common to all. The Logos is common to all, yet the multitude lives as if each had his own intelligence. ~ Heraclitus
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What opposes unites, and the finest attunement stems from things bearing in opposite directions, and all things come about by strife. ~ Heraclitus
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Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers. ~ Heraclitus
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That which always was, and is, and will be everliving fire, the same for all, the cosmos, made neither by god or man, replenishes in measure as it burns away. ~ Heraclitus
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The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. ~ Heraclitus
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It is better to conceal ignorance. ~ Heraclitus
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To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right. ~ Heraclitus
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The Greek culture of the Sophists had developed out of all the Greek instincts; it belongs to the culture of the Periclean age as necessarily as Plato does not: it has its predecessors in Heraclitus, in Democritus, in the scientific types of the old philosophy; it finds expression in, e.g., the high culture of Thucydides. And – it has ultimately shown itself to be right: every advance in epistemological and moral knowledge has reinstated the Sophists – Our contemporary way of thinking is to a great extent Heraclitean, Democritean, and Protagorean: it suffices to say it is Protagorean, because Protagoras represented a synthesis of Heraclitus and Democritus. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Heraclitus quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche
Each word of Heraclitus expresses the pride and the majesty of truth, but of truth grasped in intuitions rather than attained by the rope ladder of logic. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Heraclitus quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche
The kosmos works by harmony of tensions, like lyre and bow. Good and evil are one. On the one hand God sees all as well, fair, and good; on the other hand a human being sees injustice here, justice there. Justice in our minds is strife. We cannot help but see war makes us as we are. ~ Heraclitus
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The best of men choose one thing in preference to all else, immortal glory in preference to mortal good; whereas the masses simply glut themselves like cattle. ~ Heraclitus
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To God all things are beautiful, good, and right; human beings, on the other hand, deem some things right and others wrong. It would not be better if things happened to people just as they
wish. ~ Heraclitus
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Learning many things does not teach understanding ~ Heraclitus
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Before I can say I am, I was. Heraclitus and I, prophets of flux, know that the flux is composed of parts that imitate and repeat each other. Am or was, I am cumulative, too. I am everything I ever was, whatever you and Leah may think. I am much of what my parents and especially my grandparents were
inherited stature, coloring, brains, bones (that part unfortunate), plus transmitted prejudices, culture, scruples, likings, moralities, and moral errors that I defend as if they were personal and not familial. ~ Wallace Stegner
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Asses prefer garbage to gold. ~ Heraclitus
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All men have the capacity of knowing themselves and acting with moderation. ~ Heraclitus
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There is nothing peranent except change. ~ Heraclitus
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To God all things are beautiful and good and just. ~ Heraclitus
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Invisible harmony is better than visible. ~ Heraclitus
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You will not discover the limits of the soul
by traveling, even if you wander over every
conceivable path, so deep is its story. ~ Heraclitus
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One cannot step twice in the same river ~ Heraclitus
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ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάντατοι, ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες

(Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others' death and dying the others' life.) ~ Heraclitus
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You cannot step into the same river twice ~ Heraclitus Of Ephesus
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Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find it, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain. ~ Heraclitus
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All things flow, nothing abides. ~ Heraclitus
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Silence, healing. ~ Heraclitus
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The parallels to modern physics [with mysticism] appear not only in the Vedas of Hinduism, in the I Ching, or in the Buddhist sutras, but also in the fragments of Heraclitus, in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, or in the teachings of the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan. ~ Fritjof Capra
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Always remember what Heraclitus said: 'The death of earth is the birth of water, the death of water is the birth of atmosphere, the death of atmosphere is fire, and conversely.' Remember, too, his image of the man who forgets the way he is going; and: 'They are at variance with that with which they most continuously have converse (Reason which governs the Universe), and the things they meet with every day appear alien to them'; and again: 'We suppose that we act and speak'; and: 'We must not be like children with parents,' that is, accept things simply as we have received them. ~ Marcus Aurelius
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Yearning hurts,
and what release
may come of it
feels much like death. ~ Heraclitus
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Those who love wisdom must investigate many things ~ Heraclitus
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War is the father of all and the king of all; it proves some people gods, and some people men; it makes some people slaves and some people free. ~ Heraclitus
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For those who are awake, the Cosmos is One. ~ Heraclitus
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Nothing endures but change. There is nothing permanent except change. All is flux, nothing stays still. ~ Heraclitus
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It is wise to agree that all things are one. ~ Heraclitus
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The people should fight for the law as for their city wall. ~ Heraclitus
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Everything changes and nothing stands still. ~ Heraclitus
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What is divine escapes men's notice because of their incredulity. ~ Heraclitus
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[Heraclitus] did not require humans or their sort of knowledge, since everything into which one may inquire he despises [as being] in contrast [to his own] inward-turning wisdom. [To him] all learning from others is a sign of nonwisdom, because the wise man focuses his vision on his own intelligence. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Heraclitus quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche
there is nothing permanent except change-- ~ Heraclitus
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We circle in the night and we are devoured by fire. ~ Heraclitus
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There is nothing permanent in the world except change. ~ Heraclitus
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Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed. ~ Heraclitus Of Ephesus
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War is the mother of everything. ~ Heraclitus
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God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger. ~ Heraclitus
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Hide our ignorance as we will, an evening of wine soon reveals it. ~ Heraclitus
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At all times and in all places, in season and out of season, time is now and England, place is now and England; past and present inter-penetrate. The best days an angler spends upon his river – the river which is Heraclitus' river, which is never the same as the angler is never the same, yet is the same always – are those he recollects in tranquillity, as wintry weather lashes the land without, and he, snug and warm, ties new patterns of dry-fly, and remembers the leaf-dapple upon clear water and the play of light and the eternal dance of ranunculus in the chalk-stream. A cricket match between two riotously inexpert village Second XIs is no less an instance of timeless, of time caught in ritual within an emerald Arcadia, than is a Test at Lord's, and we who love the greatest of games know that we do indeed catch a fleeting glimpse of a spectral twelfth man on every pitch, for in each re-enactment of the mystery there is the cumulation of all that has gone before and shall come after. Et ego in Arcadia. ~ G.M.W. Wemyss
Heraclitus quotes by G.M.W. Wemyss
A dry soul is wisest and best. ~ Heraclitus
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